[lbo-talk] Blog Post. The Road Beckons: Excerpt from Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate

Marv Gandall marvgand2 at gmail.com
Sat Oct 5 06:27:52 PDT 2013


On 2013-10-04, at 3:58 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:


> I don't think we're far apart on this. Language remains a real difficulty,
> as I suggested in my brief remarks on "purpose" and "function." Legislatures
> don't self-consciously think of themselves as operating in the interest of
> Capital, nor is there some mysterious historical 'force' that makes them
> automatically act as such. And yet most of the time they act _as if_ one or
> the other were the case.

To say they're acting in accordance with historical forces wouldn't tell us very much, but wouldn't you agree that the great majority of legislators do come to identify the interests of the system and the nation with the fortunes of the corporate sector, and in that sense they can be said to be consciously operating in the interests of Capital? This does not preclude parties and individuals favouring some industries and firms over others, but the corporations and the wealthy collectively serve as the crucial funding in a political system where legslators are bought and those who don't conform to the needs of Big Capital rarely get elected.


> Carrol
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
> On Behalf Of Marv Gandall
> Sent: Friday, October 04, 2013 2:13 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Blog Post. The Road Beckons: Excerpt from Cheap
> Motels and a Hot Plate
>
>
> On 2013-10-04, at 1:04 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>> Working-class interests are sometimes served, usually in response to
> strong
>> mass actions of workers -- but I don't think this is ever, really, "at the
>> expense of others [i.e.capital].
>>
>> For example. Social Security does, to some extent, serve the interests of
>> workers, but it does _not_ do so at the expense of capital, as can be seen
>> by comparing the present system to the Townsend Plan, which (perhaps)
>> _would_ have been, to some extent, at the "expense" of capital.
>>
>> And sometimes what _seems_ to serve w-c interests actually contradicts
> those
>> interests: The Wagner Act was a disaster for the American Working Class.
> The
>> IWW had it right: No contracts, but we strike until management responds to
>> our demands. And we go on strike again a day later if Management doesn't
>> come across. Stanley Aronowitz is good on this.
>
> I agree with your important point that working class reforms are typically
> not at the "expense" of capital, and have argued along the same lines
> previously. If sought-for reforms are a net loss for capital, the state will
> ignore or, if necesary, repress the movements agitating for them rather than
> accepting them in part and shaping them to fit the needs of the system. The
> Wagner Act, for example, was a response to factory occupations, bloody
> strike confrontations, and other forms of working class protest aiming at
> securing union recognition and collective bargaining rights. The Social
> Security Act was a very modest response to the demands of the mass Townsend
> Act movement for old age pensions. The legislation in each case was meant to
> take the steam out of the mass movements while boosting mass purchasing
> power within tolerable limits set by the bourgeoisie.
>
> Despite their limitations, however, I would call neither Act a "disaster"
> for the American working class, unless it can be shown that the balance of
> class forces was such that the trade unions could have sustained the kind of
> combativity IWW tactics required and that the masses could have forced the
> Roosevelt administration to adopt the Townsend Plan. I can't prove this nor
> can you demonstrate the opposite, but that both Acts were widely welcomed by
> the workers and their organizations suggests they saw something of value in
> each and perceived them as the most which they could accomplish in the
> circumstances.
>
>
>
>
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